Blah blah blah. You still have yet to explain how anyone is to balance the almost infinite combinations of skills if secondary professions are added. You do understand the math when you add a secondary set of skills from 7 extra pools of skills to 8 professions right? Probably not since you're still arguing.

How about you explain exactly why it would be "impossible" to have secondary professions in GW2? And I know there are differences between GW2 mechanics and GW1 mechanics that make it far more complex but that is besides the point.

GW1 managed it fairly successfully with a far larger amount of skills, a larger amount of inter-changeable skills (not categorized as Weapon + Utility skills), more diverse PvP modes and by the end of the run 4 more professions to deal with. So seriously why is it "impossible" in GW2?

I feel the need to re-iterate cause for some reason you're still not getting it;

Whether or not it would be difficult to balance is besides the point entirely, I don't give a shit if it's difficult. Of course it'd be bloody difficult. Could it be achieved with a semblance of balance though? Is it within reason to say that realistically it could be achieved? Perhaps certain combinations would be over-looked. Would it be wrong of me to assume that these combinations would first be abused but eventually be found out and fixed over time?

If you're answer is no then please explain your logic.

Stop trying distort the points I am making very clearly. Stop trying to make it seem as though I don't understand the very simple issues that would arise with that which I'm suggesting. It doesn't make you look any smarter and certainly doesn't make you any more right.

How about you explain exactly why it would be "impossible" to have secondary professions in GW2? And I know there are differences between GW2 mechanics and GW1 mechanics that make it far more complex but that is besides the point.

GW1 managed it fairly successfully with a far larger amount of skills, a larger amount of inter-changeable skills (not categorized as Weapon + Utility skills), more diverse PvP modes and by the end of the run 4 more professions to deal with. So seriously why is it "impossible" in GW2?

I feel the need to re-iterate cause for some reason you're still not getting it;

Whether or not it would be difficult to balance is besides the point entirely, I don't give a shit if it's difficult. Of course it'd be bloody difficult. Could it be achieved with a semblance of balance though? Is it within reason to say that realistically it could be achieved? Perhaps certain combinations would be over-looked. Would it be wrong of me to assume that these combinations would first be abused but eventually be found out and fixed over time?

If you're answer is no then please explain your logic.

Stop trying distort the points I am making very clearly. Stop trying to make it seem as though I don't understand the very simple issues that would arise with that which I'm suggesting. It doesn't make you look any smarter and certainly doesn't make you any more right.

Seriously? You really need me to explain why an almost infinite combinations of skills and synergies is pretty much an impossibility to balance?

I see no reason to continue this with you if you still don't understand or just don't "give a shit if it's difficult". As I said before, it's interesting the same people who don't give a crap about balance are the same ones defending the thief status quo.

Seriously? You really need me to explain why an almost infinite combinations of skills and synergies is pretty much an impossibility to balance?

I see no reason to continue this with you if you still don't understand or just don't "give a shit if it's difficult". As I said before, it's interesting the same people who don't give a crap about balance are the same ones defending the thief status quo.

I think that I get the point that you're making but I nonetheless disagree with you. When I consider balance in GW1, I think that it was constantly chasing a moving target. It was a reactive process where they elevated or struck down builds in response to the evolution of the metagame. In GW2, they have proposed to proactively balance, which is at least conceivable with the smaller number of permutations. I'm neither arguing that they've been successful nor that this is a desirable state. I'm merely arguing that it is more plausible that they could proactively balance GW2 while it is clear that they never quite hit the mark in GW1.

Having said that, it is my opinion that chasing a moving target is okay. The Magic: the Gathering argument carries weight there. The metagame changes regularly, balance shifts, different builds get their day in the sun, and then the metagame changes again. I don't think secondary professions are the right mechanism for GW2. I think there's a lot of room for growth within the current structure. For example, the Engineer offers just a hint at the possibilities by having the F# skills change based on the equipped utility skills. There's a whole realm of possibilities for new skills that change their functionality based upon the weapon(s) or the other skills you have equipped. (And of course, now my mind is roiling with other out-there possibilities for new kinds of skills that they could introduce that would deepen the metagame. This isn't the right place for brainstorming, though.)

Nice to read ANets philosophy. Frankly said I'm no longer overly interested in the game since the "ascended affair" combined with the fact that one class (Thief) makes WvW really an annoyance, except you stay with the boring zerg all the time. I have an 80 Thief myself (prior my main, and an 80 Necro as new main and an 80 Warrior) and I'm very delighted to read the Thief players explanations and excuses why all is balanced. Oh no, the Thief is even underpowered, yeah... Ok. The Thief is unfortunately a class where fun in combat is only there for the Thief player. With the other classes, even against such annoying ones as Mesmers, there is an interesting fight for both sides. Such a class like Thief is now should have never been in the game. It is even worse than f.e. the WoW rogue. Maybe it is just because of the stealth bug in WvW, I will wait for the February patch.

"We don't want so much skills as in GW1 because they are hard to balance!"
I call that lazy design.

They didn't even take their own advice. They wanted to make things less complicated so they made armor and weapon choices even more complicated (but got rid of weapon swapping the way it was in GW1 because that was 'too subtle'). They made it so their are more skills, A LOT more skills. We're talking 11ish weapon skills (F1-F4 - counting that as 'weapon' on non-eles) on most classes, 20 on the Ele. And then there's the right hand of the skill bar + skills you can get from your traits.

I understand wanting to make what's going on more obvious (one of their mission statements for PvP) because something like weapon swapping in GW1 was hard to understand and not obvious for a casual player/observer. I understand smaller groups because getting 8 people can sometimes be difficult.

I don't understand getting rid of monks and making everything a million times more complex leading to tons of broken crap that makes it impossible for GW2 to be taken seriously by a large amount of competitive gamers.

Take away the thiefs ability to stealth before your eyes and break combat and you make the class instantly redundant in WvW, unless, they offered a permanent non combat stealth, where the thief could actually scout etc properly and remain hidden at all times unless they either engaged in combat or where spotted by the class with ability to see through stealth based on some form of on-use skill.

Thief hides for as long as they want, knowing that when they engage, that's it, the game is on, there is no restealthing until out of combat? I would accept that as an alernative playstyle that would at least not turn the thief into just another ranger without a pet, which is what you get if you just remove stealth.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the acronym HIPS? I know what you mean it's a very tricky situation and I would def not advocate taking stealth away from the thief as your right a thief without stealth is not a thief. But I think the mechanics of stealth as it is is too preferential and let's the their stealth tray too often during combat. And once in stealth there is nothing you can do except hit blindy. Saying that, some classes are way more proficient at taking down thieves than others.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the acronym HIPS? I know what you mean it's a very tricky situation and I would def not advocate taking stealth away from the thief as your right a thief without stealth is not a thief. But I think the mechanics of stealth as it is is too preferential and let's the their stealth tray too often during combat. And once in stealth there is nothing you can do except hit blindy. Saying that, some classes are way more proficient at taking down thieves than others.

HIPS = Hide in plain sight, ie, their ability to disappear before your very eyes, and thus, break combat.

Also, you are correct, some classes are better than others at dealing with thieves, as it should be, the game would be even duller if we were all the same. I personally have no real issues on my glass cannon ranger....don't always kill them by any means, but can control them more often than not and escape when they stealth up.

When I consider balance in GW1, I think that it was constantly chasing a moving target. It was a reactive process where they elevated or struck down builds in response to the evolution of the metagame. In GW2, they have proposed to proactively balance, which is at least conceivable with the smaller number of permutations. I'm neither arguing that they've been successful nor that this is a desirable state. I'm merely arguing that it is more plausible that they could proactively balance GW2 while it is clear that they never quite hit the mark in GW1.

Wanted to chime in here. I agree that they never quite hit the mark in proactively balancing GW1. By the time EotN was released, the permutations of skill combos were so vast that I'd think it difficult to consider every interaction within a reasonable time window. The number of skills combined with the power creep introduced after Prophecies demanded a reactive approach to balance. It's hard for me to say that GW1 reached a semblance of balance--where you could run a diversity of builds and be competitive--because the game became balanced around limited cookie-cutter builds per patch in GvG/HA. What I saw as a result was a cycle of seeing a fotm arise, key skills to the fotm being nerfed in a new patch, and then a new fotm arising from the buffs and nerfs of said patch.

I'm also not going to conclude if they have been either successful or unsuccessful, but I think by reducing the number of skills in GW2 and barring second professions, Anet's proactive approach to balance is trying to move away from fostering volatile metas that consisted of few builds to a more robust one where--ideally--diverse builds stay competitive. I like this approach, but I can see how other factors, such as the format of the PvP itself and the way they designed each class to carry out each role (damage/support/control), are placing restraints on this diversity. I hope we find a happy medium, because the talk before the game was launched about how if you wanna be a warrior with a bow or a ranger with an axe, you can, sounded really cool.

Edit:

The Shadow, on 27 December 2012 - 10:05 PM, said:

You don't have to give an Ele access to every single Warrior utility/ weapon skill. You could give Ele access to a battle-standard. Would this be game-breaking or inherently harmful? No.. Could this add variety/ flavour/ allow for more interesting build combinations? Sure could. This is just an example.

I can understand the thinking behind this, but personally, I like the appeal of unique themes for each class and the idea that each class is self-sufficient in carrying out the three roles of combat. I would rather they focus more on fostering the variety within classes and honing each's capacity to carry out roles than source from other professions. Aesthetic-wise, I can see people having an interest, but function-wise, I'm not so sure.

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Ele

We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elementalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

I would really like to know what their thinking is while saying the engineer loses damage on their mainhand because of versatility, while naming the ele king of versatility and saying how awesome they are at support control and AOE dps. This doesn't seem very balanced

It is extremely easy to defend against stealth. Removing it would make thieves completely useless as well.

How? By spamming AoE? What if most of your attacks require a target? And how I am supposed to chase Thiefs since they got the magic signet of Speed and long duration stealth? The only cripple I have comes from my iBerserker which requires a target to be activated.

Assassins in GW1 only got shadow leap but still got their job done.

If you have a reliable way to deal with Stealth please share your wisdom!

How? By spamming AoE? What if most of your attacks require a target? And how I am supposed to chase Thiefs since they got the magic signet of Speed and long duration stealth? The only cripple I have comes from my iBerserker which requires a target to be activated.

Assassins in GW1 only got shadow leap but still got their job done.

If you have a reliable way to deal with Stealth please share your wisdom!

You quoted a person saying defenac against stealth yet you go on about your offensive attacks or lack their off. Also your class has 5 ways to go invisible. Also you don't chase a thief or any other class that has a movement increase signet. Since mesmer doesn't have access to any of those. Thief is not the only class that has a movement increase signet.

If they were to remove stealth completely, then the would need to either; improve thieves other skills considerably to compensate, would you be happy with that, when a burst thief may well be able to have you on your arse faster than they do now? Or, wield the nerf bat to all classes, in some way or other, in order to effect the same overall skill parity. Are you prepared to see random nerfs potentially to all classes to achieve this? You cannot just remove stealth, it is an integral part of the thief's skillset, remove it and you need to rework the class, or all the classes.

Simplest way for people to just get on with it is to roll one of each class and play them to at least 80 before making sweeping statements with no real substance other then they keep getting beat by any other class. No point rolling to 20, 30 40 etc, you will not understand any class fully.

How? By spamming AoE? What if most of your attacks require a target? And how I am supposed to chase Thiefs since they got the magic signet of Speed and long duration stealth? The only cripple I have comes from my iBerserker which requires a target to be activated.

Assassins in GW1 only got shadow leap but still got their job done.

If you have a reliable way to deal with Stealth please share your wisdom!

As far as I know there is not a single weapon set for ANY profession that only have attacks that requires a target.
Same with the utilities, most utilities does not require a target, nor most Elite skills.

People simple need to think. Most Thieves that pops stealth do move in a rather logical direction so it is very easy to follow and kill them (or simply stop them from getting behind you and doing their massive damage).

You seems to be playing a Mesmer (based on your iBerserker).
Use the Chaos Storm and/or Null field and problem solved. Or Shatter your clones. They will shatter at the area where the enemy was last seen as far as I have seen while playing Mesmer.
Also keep in mind that most of the damage from the Thief can't even be done while it is stealthed, so you simply have to be fast when it reveals itself.

You quoted a person saying defenac against stealth yet you go on about your offensive attacks or lack their off. Also your class has 5 ways to go invisible. Also you don't chase a thief or any other class that has a movement increase signet. Since mesmer doesn't have access to any of those. Thief is not the only class that has a movement increase signet.

I have no trouble chasing Ele, Necro or Ranger since I can cripple/stun them.

And Mesmers got only 3 stealthes : Decoy which is really short in duration (2s), the Prestige which is channeled (impossible to self hea or do anything during 3 sec) and Mass Invisibility which is an Elite (5s). We really cannot compete with the Thief.

And I won't waste a Chaos Storm, clones or Null field just to see if the Thief would by chance be there ... I need them to stay alive.

I'd rather fight a Thief who deals even more damage I could actually counter rather than playing a Peekaboo game (is he behind me? is he running away? still with daggers or does he switched for shortbow?).

I have no trouble chasing Ele, Necro or Ranger since I can cripple/stun them.

And Mesmers got only 3 stealthes : Decoy which is really short in duration (2s), the Prestige which is channeled (impossible to self hea or do anything during 3 sec) and Mass Invisibility which is an Elite (5s). We really cannot compete with the Thief.

And I won't waste a Chaos Storm, clones or Null field just to see if the Thief would by chance be there ... I need them to stay alive.

I'd rather fight a Thief who deals even more damage I could actually counter rather than playing a Peekaboo game (is he behind me? is he running away? still with daggers or does he switched for shortbow?).

So.. you basically want to be able to defeat/defend against Stealth without using any of your skills?

They didn't even take their own advice. They wanted to make things less complicated so they made armor and weapon choices even more complicated (but got rid of weapon swapping the way it was in GW1 because that was 'too subtle'). They made it so their are more skills, A LOT more skills. We're talking 11ish weapon skills (F1-F4 - counting that as 'weapon' on non-eles) on most classes, 20 on the Ele. And then there's the right hand of the skill bar + skills you can get from your traits.

I understand wanting to make what's going on more obvious (one of their mission statements for PvP) because something like weapon swapping in GW1 was hard to understand and not obvious for a casual player/observer. I understand smaller groups because getting 8 people can sometimes be difficult.

I don't understand getting rid of monks and making everything a million times more complex leading to tons of broken crap that makes it impossible for GW2 to be taken seriously by a large amount of competitive gamers.

There may be more skills at any given time now, but they can atleast control them.
In GW1 people only had acces to 8 skills, but they could chose whatever they wanted.

Now skills are split between weapon skills, healing, utility and elite.
In GW1 2 healing skills could be very powerfull when used together (SoA + SB) while now they can just balance every skill in its own line.

Same for double professions, they needed to make sure every possible combo a primary ele could make with any other secondary profession wasn't to powerfull, which was a monumental task.
Now they just need to make sure some weapon combos aren't to strong together, adjust timers, effects within that weapon itself, they don't need to nerf other professions to make sure that single combo isn't to strong.

People simple need to think. Most Thieves that pops stealth do move in a rather logical direction so it is very easy to follow and kill them (or simply stop them from getting behind you and doing their massive damage).

That argument is flawed because it's assuming a fight between differently skilled players. A experienced player who's smart enough to predict movement vs. a bad thief who doesn't change direction / shadowstep / dodge in stealth to avoid AoE / move behind an obstacle / add another stealth etc.
A good Thief who uses his tools could be nearly anywhere after a few seconds in stealth and probably appears in the opposite direction.

I have no trouble chasing Ele, Necro or Ranger since I can cripple/stun them.

And Mesmers got only 3 stealthes : Decoy which is really short in duration (2s), the Prestige which is channeled (impossible to self hea or do anything during 3 sec) and Mass Invisibility which is an Elite (5s). We really cannot compete with the Thief.

And I won't waste a Chaos Storm, clones or Null field just to see if the Thief would by chance be there ... I need them to stay alive.

I'd rather fight a Thief who deals even more damage I could actually counter rather than playing a Peekaboo game (is he behind me? is he running away? still with daggers or does he switched for shortbow?).

lol I'll take it easy on you ok. You have 5 invis abilities. Decoy, Mass Invis, Veil, Prestige, trait where at 25% health you go invis. 1,2,3,4,5. All of these can be traited to last 1s longer.

Might need to spend some time in the mist try out different weapon sets.

You can stun an ele and they can mist form, blink( cant remember the name of it), ranger have the ability to ignore cc or turn invis if a cc attempt is used on them. Sorry pretty much every class enough get out of jail cards Mesmer has the most acutally at 18, thief is second with 12, and I think warriors have 8.

Because there's a lot more skill involved in playing Thief than people think.

Look at TPvP video or streamed footage on youtube. You very rarely see Thieves making that much of an impact. Look at that TPvP Bunker guardian who owns Thieves because they're arrogant. Good players don't see Thieves as being that much of a threat.. There's a multitude of reasons for that.

Also there's a massive difference between a good Thief and a not so good Thief. A good Thief can take on 3-4 level 80s in 42k Karma gear a bad Thief can't take one 1. It's not down to build or armor or because the class is OP because if it were everyone would be able to do it and I guarantee you not may can. It all whittles down to spacial/ environmental awareness, predicting enemy attacks, dodging like a pro (cause you're so squishy you have to) and controlling the flow of combat via stealth. There's some very funny footage of a good Thief doing just that.. I'll see if I can find it.

Very entertaining watch.

I absolutely guarantee you 100% that it takes skill to do what he does at around 2.50.

Don't believe me? Go try yourself

You've obviously never participated in a Zerg or in like.. any difficult explorable dungeon path. Clearly.

I only watched the first 2 min of that video. Clearly, this thief was fighting a group of inexperienced or panicked players. The warrior using a rifle could have easily shut down that thief if he was spec'd for it like I assume he was (high power/crit for rifle burst). The fact that he didn't even cripple the thief... says it all. Another video of a player posting battles vs those less experienced than him.

I only watched the first 2 min of that video. Clearly, this thief was fighting a group of inexperienced or panicked players. The warrior using a rifle could have easily shut down that thief if he was spec'd for it like I assume he was (high power/crit for rifle burst). The fact that he didn't even cripple the thief... says it all. Another video of a player posting battles vs those less experienced than him.

That's precisely my point though......

The video exemplifies a skilled Thief taking out 3 less skilled players. Does that make the Thief OP? No.. It means the Thief is more skilled than the people he's up against.. Which means what....?

Thief takes knowledge and skill to play well and it would be foolish and narrow-minded to suggest otherwise. Which was exactly my point.

Silinsar, on 06 January 2013 - 02:01 PM, said:

That argument is flawed because it's assuming a fight between differently skilled players. A experienced player who's smart enough to predict movement vs. a bad thief who doesn't change direction / shadowstep / dodge in stealth to avoid AoE / move behind an obstacle / add another stealth etc.
A good Thief who uses his tools could be nearly anywhere after a few seconds in stealth and probably appears in the opposite direction.

Sure.. to an extent.. but by the same measure.. a "good Thief" is still taking damage while not returning any in the situation you presented... Even good Thieves have to backstab their opponents at some point.. or well.. we're just delaying our inevitable deaths (providing backstab build ofc) or saving time just to run away. We don't have the health pool to fight battles of attrition...

The whole time we're being un-predictable and playing mind-games we're susceptible to being whittled down.. Slowly but surely.

Thief takes knowledge and skill to play well and it would be foolish and narrow-minded to suggest otherwise. Which was exactly my point.

When you are playing against shit - it really not about playing "well". It's simply about playing "better". You need to be better than the shit you are playing against.
The thing is - the HUGE majority of GW2 play takes place on this level. And the problem is that the thief's insanely high floor plays right into this - the class itself provides you with the tools to play "better", without the player's skill even coming into question.

Sure.. to an extent.. but by the same measure.. a "good Thief" is still taking damage while not returning any in the situation you presented... Even good Thieves have to backstab their opponents at some point.. or well.. we're just delaying our inevitable deaths (providing backstab build ofc) or saving time just to run away. We don't have the health pool to fight battles of attrition...

The whole time we're being un-predictable and playing mind-games we're susceptible to being whittled down.. Slowly but surely.

So in actual fact... your argument is pretty damn flawed..

Sorry, I didn't point out that I was only talking about stealth as an escape mechanism. Just wanted to say that it's not "very easy to follow an kill" a Thief who knows what he does.

I like how this degenerated into a bash on thieves. The balance is actually fine it is there is a skill difference between the thief and the players he attacks. It is also a gear difference between who the thief hits.

That video was a fun watch too. It shows the difference between skilled an unskilled players. I personally never mastered the bow escape like he did at 2:50 and usually end up dead with a bow in my hands. I switched to sword/dagger and am getting more skilled with that than with a dagger/dagger to the point of being dangerous to pretty much anyone.

Full wurm is interesting. His exotics look like the Valkyrie set. He doesn't show his trinkets though so theres something hidden in that.The weapon sigils are interesting. Hydromancy on the bow and force/fire on the daggers. All superiors too. His gear must have run upwards of 30g.

This is the difference you're complaining about, not that thieves are OP.

Berserker trinkets + Valkyrie armor is probably what he used. Lands you with 41% crit chance. It's a pretty common combo.

If you wanted to actually improve on his gear setup you'd use either Divinity runes or Runes of the Eagle. But that'd set you back quite a bit more than Runes of the Wurm.. Reason being.. 41% crit chance is still quite low IMO.

Silinsar, on 09 January 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

Sorry, I didn't point out that I was only talking about stealth as an escape mechanism. Just wanted to say that it's not "very easy to follow an kill" a Thief who knows what he does.

But what does it matter...? You can't kill Thief. He can't kill you. It's equally shit for both parties involved.

Protoss, on 09 January 2013 - 09:20 AM, said:

When you are playing against shit - it really not about playing "well". It's simply about playing "better". You need to be better than the shit you are playing against.
The thing is - the HUGE majority of GW2 play takes place on this level. And the problem is that the thief's insanely high floor plays right into this - the class itself provides you with the tools to play "better", without the player's skill even coming into question.

I know plenty of shit Thieves that don't kill shit easily. I honestly think that there are many other classes that are far more accessible and far easier to play.. like Guardian.. you can kill shit without even moving.. or D/D hybrid bunker Ele that can kill shit with a blind fold on.. Thief actually requires awareness and the ability to dodge extremely well. I wasn't born a good Thief in GW2. I've already got around 2000 hours on Thief and I still find myself dying, learning and improving. I honestly think a lot of people start playing Thief because it teaches you a very valuable lesson in GW2; "L2Dodge noob!"

If you disagree that's fine. It's a subjective point. For some reason however, I get the distinct feeling that you (and people arguing the same points as you, this isn't directed solely at you) are pretty damn biased... I think you've been killed one too many times by shitty Heartseeker spammers.. and now you're pretty damn pissed off... So you all make feeble attempts at accusing the class or "QQ ez2play nub class" and make simply ridiculous generalizations when the simple truth is.. if you were any good at all.. you wouldn't get killed by those shitty Heartseeker spammers and then QQ about how unfair everything in the world is on the forums..